Would you like your usual table by the dustbins, sir?

Normal service: diners amid road works and rubbish in Old Compton Street

The bins are overflowing and the mechanical diggers are in full cry. Welcome to the wonderful world of alfresco dining - London style.

This is the view that diners enjoy - or rather endure - in Old Compton Street in the heart of Soho.

The road is being dug up to replace leaky Victorian water mains and the misery of the unsightly and noisy construction works is compounded by the decision to pile up the street's rubbish against the railings.

There are growing fears that the waste mountains will lead to problems with rats and other pests.

Westminster council has launched new guidelines on overflowing waste in a bid to cope with the problem. It wants business owners and pest control companies to follow a single set of guidelines relating to cleanliness, food storage and standardised methods of treatment.

It's enough to make diners at Café Boheme choke on their spatchcock spring chicken with aioli (price £15).

"There are roadworks everywhere at the moment in London," complained Richard Keith, 32, an advertising executive from Clerkenwell.

"The noise and the dust is annoying and the pavement is very constricted, which means people are having to squeeze past the tables."

Café Boheme's manager Audrey Bouguerroudj, 26, said: "It's a shame about the timing because the weather's just started to be nice and outside tables are good revenue for us. On a busy day you can easily make £1,500 but we are losing half of that. I wouldn't sit out there.

"We can open all our windows on nice days but at the moment the noise is too bad from all the drilling. I know they have to repair the pipes but they are taking their time. They didn't start until 11am one day. It would be better if they worked at night." Over the road at the café 34B on the corner of Old Compton Street and Frith Street, co-owner Susie Kent said: "It has affected us badly. It's the noise but also the view that is putting customers off.

"No one wants to sit right next to those barriers looking at holes in the road and rubbish while they're eating."

Customer Fletcher Banner, 30, a property developer from Kensington, said: "They managed to finish Shaftesbury Avenue much more quickly and I wonder if they have a more laidback approach here because they don't consider it such a main road."

The bags and bins of rubbish seen in the main photograph are piled up each day in the late afternoon and collected within half an hour. Thames Water, which is spending £500,000 a day replacing the pipes across London, says it is doing its best to minimise disruption and working with local authorities.

A spokesmansaid he thought the work in Old Compton Street should be finished very soon. "I am surprised it's still there," he added.

He said that a third of all water mains across London are more than 150 years old and need replacing. The worst of the work should be over in time for the 2012 Olympic Games, he added.